War - What is it good for?  Well... a reasonable time

Jason Statham hadn't quite hit the big time when he starred opposite Jet Li in (the imaginatively titled!) 'War,' therefore he only gets second billing to the martial arts superstar.  What the title refers to is more of a 'personal feud' between FBI agent 'Crawford' (Statham) and the man 'Rogue' (Li) who murdered his partner.  Crawford is going to hunt down Rogue no matter what.

What follows is a sort of hybrid between an action/thriller film, with all the usual tropes of chases and punch-ups and a cop/gangster film.  It's not overly long either and there's not an awful lot to say about it in general.  Do you like action?  Well... you should like this.  Do you like either or both of the stars?  Well... guess what - you should enjoy this. 

There's one plot element I'm deliberately not going to address for fear of heading into 'spoiler' territory.  Yes, I know what you're thinking... in a film this 'by-the-numbers' is there really anything that's going to shock or surprise you?  The answer is probably 'no' (especially for anyone who's been a fan of any of the genres for any real period of time).  However, there is one aspect you might not see coming (although the film is so old by now this element of the plot has been discussed so many times you've probably accidentally heard about it and are just simply not bothered).

About the only complaint I really have for the film is that the two stars don't really 'square off' in the way you might expect them to.  Now, Statham may have beat the living hell out of armies of faceless henchmen in his time, but - technically - he's not really a 'martial arts' star (especially when compared to Lee).  However, you'd think that their varying methods of fighting may work well when pitched up against one another (especially for a fight scene choreographer to go to town on!), but it never really happens.

If I'm in the mood for a healthy dose of action and 'the Stath' (I'm more of a Statham fan than a Jet Li fan, by the way) then this is certainly one of those films you can sit down to at the end of a long day and rest your brain while occasionally checking your phone without fear of really missing anything. 

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that